Exploring cultural logic in becoming teacher: a collaborative autoethnography on transnational teaching and learning

ABSTRACT

Departing from the view that learning is a linear progression, we argue that through the lens of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and cultural logic, teacher learning research can be advanced. Applying these two constructs to a collaborative autoethnography of two emerging scholars’ transnational teaching and learning experiences in the US and South Korea we argue that implicit and explicit norms in a culture influence the process of becoming teacher in the Korean context. Findings suggest that socio-cultural elements of implicit beliefs and norms outside of schools are linked to teacher learning inside schools, thereby suggesting that teacher learning at the micro-level needs to be understood alongside meso-level artefacts and macro-level factors in the complex process of becoming teacher. This study supports the view that becoming teacher is nonlinear and culturally situated.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher learning
• CHAT
• cultural logic
• transnational teaching and learning
• collaborative autoethnography
• Korean education

Acknowledgments

This project was funded by the Department of Teacher Education in the College of Education at Michigan State University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this paper, we understand ‘teacher learning’ and ‘becoming teacher’ as interchangeable terms in our contexts. What we note as ‘teacher learning’ should be interpreted as the complex, non-linear, and ongoing processes of becoming teacher.

2. Hanji is a Korean traditional paper making art form in which objects such as furniture can be made.